Nintendo gears up for Wii U system update

Nintendo continues to plow ahead with its work on the Wii U. As we had told you about recently, Nintendo is preparing for the a big system update for the Wii U that is expected to go live in North America later today.

The update will greatly reduce system load times, allow users to move data between USB devices, allow for background downloading, and once the patch is completed, it is expected that the Wii U Virtual Console will arrive. The system updates to the Wii U seem necessary to help Nintendo get the system on track again by addressing consumer complaints.

The problem is that while Nintendo is trying to address the issues with the Wii U, third party software publishers and developers are still telling us that Nintendo needs to sell more Wii U units. With sales far less than publishers and developers expected, it has led to a slowdown in titles coming for the Wii U.

While it is obvious that the Wii U needs more third party software support, publishers and developers are currently bulking at bring more titles out. So far, sales of Wii U 3rd party titles have not been stellar (to say the least) and the fact that many recent and upcoming titles are choosing to bypass release on the Wii U is a cause for concern.

It is unknown what Nintendo’s strategy is for dealing with this problem, but if the system continues to miss critical new releases, we expect the Wii U’s sales to continue to suffer; and without selling more systems, we just don’t see how Nintendo will get the attention of 3rd party publishers and developers once again.